Hi everyone! I am about to try and create some Belegarth legal armor with a friend for use in our small group (which we hope to eventually make into a realm) and I was hoping for some of your sage advice. I also hope this is the right place!

Our plan has 3 major goals:1) provide armor that is easy to move around in and not painful to wear2) Have a good aesthetic quality to help promote our group on our College's Campus 3) Be reasonably cost-effective and meet with Belegarth's rulesIf we are happy with the first set we make, we plan to make another one or two that match in color and basic design for the elite of our small group.

The armor we have planned consists of the following:-A dark black leather Lamellar vest with adjustable straps-Metal Spaulders for the shoulders-Metal Arm Bracers (possibly)-Metal Leg bracers-Basic dark or black clothing to go under all of this armor

We also hope to get the metal bits to be a reasonably shiny gold or yellow color to reflect our school's colors (gold and black), and for this my best idea is some golden spray paint (very open to better ideas).

For the lamellar I already have a vendor from which I am going to buy the pre-cut plates, and I plan to just slowly thread them together with some black (possibly gold) para-cord over a period of a few days/weeks. I am uncertain about the adjustable straps for the gut area, but lacking them I plan to just have extra para-cord coming off the sides that I can tie together.

The metal is where I have my real questions (though input on any other part of this is very much appreciated!). As an engineering student I have access to an entire metal shaping and production lab with a decent cnc machine and other tools that, frankly, I've not investigated yet. I've been told by a friend with some metalworking experience that it would be reasonably easy to shape and work with some steel sheet metal (approx 20 gauge) using these tools. I am wondering if anyone knows what a good site/place to buy this sheet metal would be as well. I really just want to bend and cut these accessory pieces then paint them gold, so I can't imagine it would be impossibly difficult with all the tools available to me. However, having no experience with metalworking or really any sort of armor building, I figured it would be a good idea to make a post here so that I could ask for a review of my plan to help find any holes in it.